Japan PM scraps overseas trip after ‘megaquake’ advisory

LONDON: The superyacht “Bayesian” that sank off Sicily in August, killing British tech mogul Mike Lynch and six others, is to be raised and brought to shore next month, an investigator said on Tuesday.
The luxury 56-meter (185-foot) yacht was struck by a pre-dawn storm on August 19 as it was anchored off Porticello, near Palermo, and sank within minutes, killing Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, and five others.
Lynch, the 59-year-old founder of software firm Autonomy, had invited friends and family onto the boat to celebrate his recent acquittal in a huge US fraud case.
Inquests into the deaths of Lynch and the other three British victims are being held in Ipswich in eastern England.
Simon Graves, a principal investigator for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) — a British government organization that investigates maritime accidents involving British ships around the world — told a pre-inquest hearing that the Bayesian was going to be raised and expected to be on dry land by the end of May.
The retrieval operation was due to begin on April 26.
Inquests were opened and adjourned last October pending the completion of probes by both the UK investigators and a criminal inquiry by Italian prosecutors.
Graves said a MAIB interim report on whether there were any breaches of maritime legislation could be published online in four to six weeks, with the final report to follow in “months not weeks.”
Coroner Nigel Parsley said he was “in the hands of the criminal investigations” as to when a final inquest hearing date could be set.
There were 22 passengers on board, including 12 crew and 10 guests, when the yacht sank.
The inquest in the UK is examining the deaths of Lynch and his daughter, Hannah, 18, as well as Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his 71-year-old wife Judy Bloomer, who were also British nationals.
The others who died were US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, and Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the yacht.
Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife and Hannah’s mother, was among the 15 survivors.

ROME: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is heading to the White House for a meeting on Thursday with President Donald Trump, seeking to ease tensions over US tariffs on European goods and position herself as a bridge between Washington and Brussels.
Meloni is walking a tightrope between her ideological affinity to the president and her ties with European allies, who have criticized Trump’s tariff hikes and his decision to exclude the EU from talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
While Meloni is under pressure at home to protect Italy’s export-driven economy, which last year ran a 40 billion euro ($45.4 billion) trade surplus with the US, she must also be seen to defend the interests of the whole 27-nation EU bloc.
French government ministers have warned that the nationalist Italian leader might undermine EU unity by going alone to Washington, but the European Commission, which has responsibility for negotiating trade accords, has welcomed Meloni’s trip.
Trump’s abrupt decision last week to pause most global tariffs for 90 days has relieved some of the pressure on Meloni, meaning that she won’t feel the need to return with a deal, but rather to create the right environment for an accord.
“She is no longer traveling amid an open clash involving the EU. She is going as a de facto mediator,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a political analyst at Luiss University in Rome.
ROME’S AMBITIONS
Meloni was the only EU leader invited to Trump’s inauguration in January and this week’s meeting will take place the day before she hosts Vice President JD Vance in Rome — back-to-back talks that could be crucial to furthering Italian ambitions to play a pivotal role in transatlantic relations.
“If she facilitates negotiations with Trump without penalizing Europe, she will emerge much stronger,” said Castellani.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has so far not been granted an audience with Trump, meaning that she has to rely on others to promote EU interests.
A Commission spokesperson said Meloni and von der Leyen had been in regular contact ahead of the White House meeting.
Both leaders have called for all of Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs to be scrapped for the EU, and Meloni is expected to push for a “zero-for-zero” deal on industrial tariffs between the two sides.
French officials fear Trump is seeking to divide and conquer Europe, and worry Meloni could play into his hands.
“We need to be united because Europe is strong if it’s united,” Marc Ferracci, the French minister for industry and energy, told FranceInfo radio. “If we start having bilateral talks, of course it’ll break this momentum.”

CHINA
While Trump has frozen many tariffs, he has maintained a wall of levies on China and some analysts say this might bring China and Europe closer together.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week, and urged greater engagement with China in order to defend globalization and to oppose “unilateral acts of bullying.”
Rome has distanced itself from his comments.
“The great clash underway is not between the US and Europe, but between the US and China,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told Reuters in an interview.
Trump and Meloni may also discuss defense and Castellani said Meloni might promise to hike defense spending in future.
Italy’s defense budget was 1.49 percent of GDP last year even as Trump is pushing NATO allies to lift military spending to 5 percent of GDP.